Leipzig Trial and Comintern Leadership
In 1933 he was arrested in Berlin for alleged complicity in setting the Reichstag on fire (see Reichstag fire). During the Leipzig Trial, Dimitrov's calm conduct of his defence and the accusations he directed at his prosecutors won him world renown.
During the Leipzig Trial, several German aviators who had been trained in secret in the Soviet Union were arrested. They were released when, after secret negotiations, the Bulgarian communists Dimitrov, Vasili Tanev and Blagoi Popov tried in Leipzig were allowed to leave for the Soviet Union. There Dimitrov was awarded Soviet citizenship. The massive popularity he enjoyed made him an asset of Joseph Stalin's government, and Dimitrov was appointed General Secretary of the Comintern from 1934, remaining in office until the organisation's dissolution in 1943. He asserted himself as a Stalinist during and after the Great Purge.
In 1935, at the 7th Comintern Congress, Dimitrov spoke for Stalin when he advocated the Popular Front strategy, meant to consolidate Soviet ideology as mainstream Anti-Fascism — a move later exploited during the Spanish Civil War.
Read more about this topic: Georgi Dimitrov
Famous quotes containing the words trial and/or leadership:
“You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“A woman who occupies the same realm of thought with man, who can explore with him the depths of science, comprehend the steps of progress through the long past and prophesy those of the momentous future, must ever be surprised and aggravated with his assumptions of leadership and superiority, a superiority she never concedes, an authority she utterly repudiates.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)